Battle of Chaldiran
Ottoman Empire |combatant2= Safavid dynasty |commander1= Sultan Selim I |commander2= Shah Ismail I |strength1=60,000Keegan & Wheatcroft, Who's Who in Military History, Routledge, 1996. p. 268 "In 1515 Selim marched east with some 60,000 men; a proportion of these were skilled Janissaries, certainly the best infantry in Asia, and the sipahis, equally well-trained and disciplined cavalry. ... The Azerbaijanian army, under Shah Ismail, was almost entirely composed of Turcoman tribal levies, a courageous but ill-disciplined cavalry army. Slightly inferior in numbers to the Turks, their charges broke against the Janissaries, who had taken up fixed positions behind rudimentary field works." or 100,000'Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire', ed. Gábor Ágoston,Bruce Alan Masters, page 286, 2009 or 212,000,Ghulam Sarwar, History of Shah Isma'il Safawi, AMS, New York, 1975, p. 79 artillery and musketsRoger M. Savory, Iran under the Safavids, Cambridge, 1980, p. 41 |strength2=12,000 or 40,000 or 55,000Keegan & Wheatcroft, Who's Who in Military History, Routledge, 1996. p. 268 or 80,000 |casualties1=Heavy lossesKenneth Chase, Firearms: A Global History to 1700, 120. or less than 2,000 Serefname II |casualties2=Heavy losses or approximately 5,000 Serefname II s. 158 }} The Battle of Chaldiran or Chaldoran ( , ) occurred on 23 August 1514 and ended with a victory for the Ottoman Empire over the Safavid Empire. As a result, the Ottomans gained immediate control over eastern Anatolia and northern Iraq. The battle, however, was just the beginning of 41 years of destructive war between the two empires that only ended in 1555 with the Treaty of Amasya. While the Ottomans often had the upper hand, the Persians for the most part held their ground. All Safavid losses in Shia-dominated metropolitan regions of Persia, such as Luristan and Kermanshah, proved temporary, being recovered from the Ottomans soon after each battle. An exception was Azerbaijan, which- though taken back from the Ottomans, would later be permanently lost to the Russian Empire. Iraq, as well as eastern Anatolia, would also be forever taken from traditional Iranian suzerainty. At Chaldiran, the Ottomans had a larger, better equipped army numbering 60,000 to 200,000, while the Qizilbash Turcomans numbered some 40,000 to 80,000. Shah Ismail I, who was wounded and almost captured in the battle, retired to his palace and withdrew from government administrationMoojan Momen, An Introduction to Shiʻi Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shiʻism, (Yale University Press, 1985), 107. after his wives were captured by Selim I,The Cambridge History of Iran, ed. William Bayne Fisher, Peter Jackson, Laurence Lockhart, 224 with at least one married off to one of Selim's statesmen.Leslie P. Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire, (Oxford University Press, 1993), 37. The battle is one of major historical importance because it not only negated the idea that the Murshid of the Shia-Qizilbash was infallible,The Cambridge History of Iran, ed. William Bayne Fisher, Peter Jackson, Laurence Lockhart, 359. but it also fully defined the Ottoman-Safavid borders and led Kurdish chiefs to assert their authority and switch their allegiance from the Safavids to the Ottomans.Martin Sicker, The Islamic World in Ascendancy: From the Arab conquests to the Siege of Vienna, (Praeger Publishers, 2000), 197. Background After Selim I's successful struggle against his brothers for the throne of the Ottoman Empire, he was free to turn his attention to the internal unrest he believed was stirred up by the Shia Qizilbash, who had sided with other members of the Dynasty against him and had been semi-officially supported by Bayezid II. Selim now feared that they would incite the population against his rule in favor of Shah Isma'il leader of the Shia Safavids, and by some of his supporters believed to be family of the Prophet. Selim secured a jurist opinion that described Isma'il and the Qizilbash as "unbelievers and heretics" enabling him to undertake extreme measures on his way eastward to pacify the country.Caroline Finkel, Osman's Dream, (Basic Books, 2006), 104. . In response, Shah Isma'il accused Sultan Selim of aggression against fellow Muslims, violating religious sexual rules and shedding innocent blood.Caroline Finkel, Osman's Dream, 105. When Selim started his march east, the Safavids were invaded in the east by the Uzbek state recently brought to prominence by Abu 'I-Fath Muhammad, who had fallen in battle against Isma'il only a few years before. To avoid the prospect of fighting a war on two fronts, Isma'il employed a scorched earth policy against Selim in the west.Caroline Finkel, Osman's Dream, 105 The terrain of eastern Anatolia and the Caucuses is extremely rough and combined with the difficulty in supplying the army in light of Isma'il's scorched earth campaign while marching against Muslims, Selim's army was discontented. The Janissaries even fired their muskets at the Sultan's tent in protest at one point. When Selim learned of the Safavid army forming at Chaldiran, he quickly moved to engage Isma'il in part to stifle the discontent of his army.Caroline Finkel, Osman's Dream, 106. Battle The Ottomans deployed heavy artillery and thousands of Janissaries equipped with gunpowder weapons behind a barrier of carts. The Safavids used cavalry to engage the Ottoman forces. The Safavids attacked the Ottoman wings in an effort to avoid the Ottoman artillery positioned at the center. However, the Ottoman artillery was highly maneuverable and the Safavids suffered disastrous losses.Andrew James McGregor, A Military History of Modern Egypt: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Ramadan War, (Greenwood Publishing, 2006), 17. The advanced Ottoman weaponry was the deciding factor of the battle as the Safavid forces, who only had traditional weaponry, were decimated. The Safavids also suffered from poor planning and ill-disciplined troops unlike the Ottomans.Gene Ralph Garthwaite, The Persians, (Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 164. Aftermath Following their victory the Ottomans temporarily captured the Safavid capital of Tabriz, which they evacuated quickly. The Shia defeat at Chaldiran brought an end to the Shia uprisings in Ottoman Empire. After two of his wives were captured by Selim''The Cambridge history of Iran'', ed. William Bayne Fisher, Peter Jackson, Laurence Lockhart, pg. 224. Ismail was heartbroken and resorted to drinking alcohol.The Cambridge history of Islam, Part 1, ed. Peter Malcolm Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton, Bernard Lewis, pg. 401 Ismail did not participate in government affairs,Elton L. Daniel, The History of Iran, (ABC-CLIO, 2012), 86 as his aura of invincibility was shattered.The Cambridge History of Islam, Part 1, By Peter Malcolm Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton, Bernard Lewis, p. 401. After the defeat at Chaldiran, however, the Safavids made drastic domestic changes. Ismail's son, Tahmasp I deployed cannons in subsequent battles.Gunpowder and Firearms in the Mamluk Sultanate Reconsidered, Robert Irwin, The Mamluks in Egyptian and Syrian politics and society, ed. Michael Winter and Amalia Levanoni, (Brill, 2004), 127 After the battle of Chaldiran, Selim I would then throw his forces southward to fight the Mamluk Sultanate in the Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–1517). Battlefield The site of the battle is near Chala Ashaqi village, around 6 km west of the town of Siyah Cheshmeh, south of Maku, north of Qareh Ziyaeddin. A large brick dome was built at the battlefield site in 2003 along with a statue of Seyid Sadraddin, one of the main Safavid commanders. Quotes After the battle, Selim referring to Ismail believed that his adversary was: See also *Shi'a–Sunni relations *Sipahi References Category:Ottoman–Persian Wars Category:1514 in Asia Category:16th century in the Ottoman Empire Category:Battles involving the Ottoman Empire Category:Battles involving the Safavid dynasty Category:Conflicts in 1514 Category:History of West Azerbaijan Province